


There's magic when we hold hands

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Steve first met when Bucky was eleven and Steve was thirteen. Steve was short and skinny, all elbows, thin greasy hair and laboring wheezing breaths. Bucky was tall for his age, with a swaggering stride and a cheeky grin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's magic when we hold hands

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on the wonderful poem [Magic Always](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/magic-always/) by Emmanuel Emesakoru.  
> Its such a beautiful poem honestly you should read it.
> 
> As usual this is unbeta'd so grammar errors may pop up. Although, I proof read this like ten thousand times.

"There's magic when we hold hands  
When you slip your fingers into mine  
The memory always lingers  
  
Magic always does happen  
Within the feel of your palm

[...]"

* * *

 

Bucky and Steve first met when Bucky was eleven and Steve was thirteen. Steve was short and skinny; all elbows, thin greasy hair and laboring wheezing breaths. Bucky was tall for his age, with a swaggering stride and a cheeky grin. Steve was a Gryffindor, although it was a running gag that the sorting hat made a mistake. The nerdy kid with the ink stained hands and weak immune system could never be a _real_ Gryffindor.

Bucky with his easy grin and charming repartee made friends quickly.

Steve remembers when he first saw him through swollen almost shut eyes. Bucky was already popular, smiling wide and almost arrogantly. It didn’t really surprise Steve when Bucky got called up to the front of the dining hall and after careful deliberation the sorting hat bellowed Slytherin.

Steve didn’t have him for any classes, but he saw him around a lot, usually surrounded by people. Everywhere he went Bucky was surrounded by friends, and he would smile and snark, and everyone loved him. However, the place Steve would run into Bucky the most was the Hospital Wing.

Steve would be there because most nights his lungs would seize up and not allow him to breathe. Steve knew how to live with asthma. It was a muggle illness he had his mother to thank for, but asthma was unheard of in the Wizarding community; so the nurses gave him a bed and branded it his. He knew they just wanted to make sure he was okay, that Doctor Erskine genuinely cared about him, but all it served to do was separate him even more from his peers.

Bucky would be there because despite all his charm and easy banter, he was quick to fight. At least twice a week Bucky would show up from adverse effects to some spell he got hit with while dueling a student. From what Steve could pick up of the hushed conversations between Bucky and the nurses, it was always older students, and always because he managed to upset someone’s boyfriend. In one memorable occasion he had actually upset someone’s girlfriend, a Slytherin named Natasha.

Steve never spoke to him, although Bucky would always wave at Steve as if they were old friends.

“Again, pal?” he would say sometimes, and Steve would give him a dry look that would send the younger boy into giggles.

The first time Steve talked to Bucky was in a grimy corner of Knockturn Alley.

Bucky was thirteen, still tall for his age, his shoulders were beginning to broaden. His hair which had once been too long and unruly was now neatly combed, and his uniform which he used to wear rumpled and dirty was now clean and pressed. Steve was fifteen, and he was still as small and weak as he had been when he was thirteen and Bucky was eleven.

Steve had managed to piss off some burly wizard who was throwing punch after solid bunch. Steve could hex him, Steve could put up shield spell to defend himself, but he was underage and he was an orphan, using magic would only make a bad situation worse.

Steve didn’t really see what happened, his eyes were already swelling shut and his head was spinning, but there was no mistaking the angry bellow of “ _Impedimenta!_ ” and the meaty sound of a body knocking back against one of the walls of the alley.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Steve thinks he might be delirious for a couple of seconds before he is gently turned over and he realizes he is not, it really is Bucky who came to his rescue. “You okay, pal?”

“I had him on the ropes,” Steve coughs, standing up on shaky legs, appreciating that while hovering over him to help him if he stumbles, Bucky doesn’t offer to help. Steve’s pride was already injured enough.

Bucky laughs; the same laugh that won over so many hearts when he first stepped foot in Hogwarts, and Steve wonders if his stomach dropping is nausea from a concussion or something else entirely. He fervently hopes it’s a concussion.

Steve hears the sound of groans at the same time as Bucky and doesn’t even try to stop Bucky as he once again points his wand at the man who had been beating Steve and says, “ _Locomotor Mortis_ ,” effectively incapacitating Steve’s attacker.

“You know you really shouldn’t use magic outside of school,” Steve says as he walks alongside Bucky back towards Diagon Alley.

“Don’t worry about it, I have friends in the aurors office, they won’t do anything to me,” Bucky says dismissively. “I’d rather hear about what you were doing in Knockturn Alley.”

Bucky turns to Steve with a cocky smirk that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which to Steve’s surprise shine with disapproval and an astonishing amount of worry.

“I’m from the neighborhood,” And it’s not a lie.

Unfortunately.

When Steve’s mom died he had to find a place to live, and if he had remained in the muggle world that would have meant an orphanage. Regrettably, even though Steve’s father had been a wizard he hadn’t been a particularly rich one, leaving Steve with no inheritance money. So, Steve worked freelance as an artist; it paid just enough for a hostel in Knockturn Alley where he could stay during the two months of summer before going back home to Hogwarts.

Bucky raised an eyebrow and Steve tried to smile reassuringly but the motion pulled at a cut on his lip and he winced, his bloody nose wrinkling in pain.

“Here, lemme fix that,” Bucky said wand at the ready.

“No-“

“ _Episkey_.”                                                                                                       

Steve flinched as his face grew hot and then cooled again. Bucky examined his handiwork and satisfied began his trek back to Diagon Alley, Steve stumbling beside him.

“So is that why you’re always at Doctor Erskine's?” Bucky asked.

“What do you mean?” Steve was annoyed that he was older and yet he had to look up at Bucky to talk to him. The top of his head only reached Bucky’s jaw, which was beginning to square into the jaw of a young man.

“You get beat up often?” Bucky asked all too casually, hands in his robes. Steve thought he looked like he was about to start whistling.

“Not as often as you,” Steve said before he could stop himself. Bucky paused and turned to grin at Steve his eyes alive with mirth. Steve wasn’t sure if Bucky was laughing at him or at what he’d said but Steve thought he could understand why so many boyfriends were wary of Bucky and his devil may care smile.

“Got something against running away?” Bucky said staring down at Steve with amused curiosity. Steve opened his mouth to give his well-practiced answer but Bucky shook his head.

“Never mind _, Gryffindor,_ ” Bucky grinned. They were already at the place where Knockturn Alley met with Diagon Alley and Bucky turned around and offered a salute Steve was sure was at least partly mocking. “See ya around, Steve.”

Bucky had already disappeared into the crowd when Steve realized they had never been formally introduced.

After that it was like Bucky made it his personal mission to include Steve into his group of friends. When they met again Bucky made his way into Steve’s train compartment, the only greeting Bucky gave Steve was a shit-eating grin. Soon Bucky’s friends all crowded into the booth as well, and Steve realized that Bucky was different to other Slytherin’s. He made it a point to have friends on every one of the houses. It wasn’t until weeks later when Steve asked him how come and Bucky said “more connections,” that Steve accepted that the sorting hat really hadn’t made a mistake in sorting Bucky with Slytherin instead of Hufflepuff like Steve originally believed.

Steve found himself suddenly surrounded by more people than he knew how to deal with. Bucky introduced him to a group he called _the Howling Commandos-_ a joke Steve didn’t get until he found out they were all animagi as a show of support aimed at Bruce Banner who was actually a werewolf. Bucky introduced him to a lot of girls too, all of them pretty and smart enough to not look twice at the loser with the respiratory problems. Steve said he didn’t mind, he did.

Before he knew it Steve was willingly seeking out Bucky’s company. Bucky was a valuable friend, he indulged Steve when Steve asked him to play quidditch- even though nine times out of ten it ended on Steve having an asthma attack. Bucky would furiously repeat “ _anapneo_ ,” even though technically there was nothing really blocking Steve’s airways.

During the first year of their friendship both Bucky and Steve benefited, they stopped hanging out quite so much at the Hospital Wing, although they still put in their occasional appearance. Bucky would always impishly ask the nurses if they missed him and Steve would stare sheepishly at Dr. Erskine’s disapproving expression.

“I’m working on a potion for you my boy,” The doctor said on one of Steve’s casual visits.

“What kind of potion?” Steve asked curiously, they were sat in his office, the doctor drinking a glass of firewhiskey and Steve nursing a mug of butter-beer, both sneaked onto school grounds from a bar down in Hogsmeade by the doctor himself.

“A little something to get rid of all those muggle ailments of yours,” the doctor said, finishing his drink.

“You don’t have too,” Steve said, but he couldn’t quite hide the hope in his voice, Dr. Erskine waved a hand dismissively.

Winter break crept up on them quickly and Bucky stayed in campus. When Steve asked him why Bucky simply shrugged and Steve decided not to push it.

They spent their days huddled in the Gryffindor common room Steve wrapped up in blankets and Bucky reading out letters that their friends sent them from home. Steve wondered when he was unconditionally welcomed to the group, and what he did to have his new friends send him chocolate frogs for Christmas.

“You’re a good guy Steve,” Bucky said seriously when Steve asked why his friends even bothered with him, “they like you.”

Steve pretended that what he wanted to hear wasn’t _‘I_ like you.’

Some days when Steve’s asthma calmed down enough for his chest to ease up and allow him deep breaths they’d sneak out to Hogsmeade. Bucky wanted to go to the jokes shop and Steve would humor him, but whenever Bucky got distracted by a girl Steve would make his way outside to try and sketch the the pretty buildings with snow piled on top. Bucky would find him and frown at Steve’s cold, stiff, charcoal stained hands and whisk him away for something warm to drink.

When New Year’s Eve rolled around Steve and Bucky were at the top of Gryffindor tower staring at the stars. Bucky wasn’t talking and neither was Steve but when Bucky’s left hand found Steve’s right and gripped tight Steve suddenly realized there were no words necessary.


End file.
